46 years ago, Star Trek beamed onto the TV sets of America for the first time. Today, Google celebrates that anniversary with an interactive “Google Doodle”, a game embedded into the search engine’s logo at Google.com. Click on characters and objects on the bridge and watch a famous Trek story unfold. Hit the jump for photos.

Celebrate 46 Years of Trek With Google’s Version of Arena
Watch the Enterprise bridge crew, who have taken shape as the letters G-O-O-G-L-E, relive a Googly version of the famous Trek episode Arena in which Captain Kirk must do battle with a giant lizard creature at the Vasquez Rocks Cestus III. And, if you’re clever enough, you might just find a cameo appearance made by some Tribbles!

#13, yep I had the same thought, Sept. 8 is the real date, but that would fall on a Saturday. Google tends to put up doodles of events that fall on the weekend up that Friday and then leave it up over the weekend.

#21. Never heard that one before. NBC it was. I was there at the ripe old age of 9, being awed by the salt-sucking creature! Many years later I met George Clayton Johnson who struck me more as a hobo hippie than a scifi writer along the lines of Ray Bradbury (who advised me on my dating… and I should have paid attention…)

@11. sterj – If you haven’t already done so, read “Troublesome Minds”– perhaps the best Spock-centric novel ever (IMO, and written within the last couple of years). The ending left me puzzling for days about how things would have to play out in the following weeks, and I never came up with an answer.